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Western Stories
Western Stories ''is a 2016 British/American western action/drama television series written and directed by D.W. Worth, and produced by LDL Studios. It is a reimagining of the 2011 LDL Studios production of the same name, which was cancelled in 2015 after three years of rewriting and rebooting. Production Production began on the original ''Western Stories ''in mid to late 2010 following the release of the video game ''Red Dead Redemption, on which the series was/is based. Initially the show was set in MacFarlane's Ranch (a location in the aforementioned video game) and featured main characters named Johnny Blaze, Danny Ketch and Roger Marston among others, although the two former characters' names were an infringement of the copyright belonging to the Ghost Rider ''comic series. This, along with other problems such as poor quality scripts and bizarre storylines, caused the first season of ''Western Stories ''to end prematurely so that it could undergo a complete reworking. When the show returned for its second season, its main setting was now Armadillo (another ''Red Dead Redemption location) and some of the characters were renamed such as Danny Ketch to Dan Harlow, although Johnny Blaze somehow retained his copyrighted name. This season of Western Stories ran notably longer than the previous, but unfortunately the scripts didn't improve and the show was taken off air after 11 episodes due to dwindling audience figures. It was after this move that LDL Studios considered cancelling Western Stories ''altogether, but writer D.W. Worth realised that all it needed was the right treatment. Worth had one more try at reinventing the now battle scarred ''Western Stories and tried to completely regenerate it by renaming it American Guns, a decision he now states he regrets. Nevertheless, the reinvention continued and the characters were now named Johnny Jones and Nate Hunter among others, with the main setting once again being MacFarlane's Ranch. This iteration of the show had, albeit limited, success with the scripts improving under Worth and his new editor, who also suggested that format of American Guns ''be changed to allow more freedom of thought with the storylines. However the wait between episodes became longer and it was revealed that, behind the scenes, D.W. Worth was suffering from writer's block, which brought the future of ''American Guns ''into doubt and it was placed on an indefinite hiatus while Worth tried to get over his writer's block. ''American Guns ''was ultimately cancelled and LDL Studios shied away from doing another western themed TV show due to their semi-joking belief that the whole notion of such a project was cursed, and all three head writers went off to pursue other interests and collaborations. By the time D.W. Worth returned his attention to ''Western Stories ''in 2015, he had clear aspirations of what he wanted it to be and vowed to get the show up and running again. He retained a couple of actors from the original 2011 iteration of the show but decided that the main setting would be Armadillo, and eventually produced a 15 page script of the first episode which was better in quality that anything he had ever done on ''Western Stories prior. The first episode of the 2015 Western Stories was broadcast in May, and garnered a somewhat diminuitive audience but positive reception, although tragedy struck behind the scenes when lead actor Owen Wilson, along with his co-stars Nicolas Cage and Kaley Cuoco, walked out of production on the show reportedly stating he had no faith in the show lasting a month considering its tattered history. This clearly dealt a massive blow to ''Western Stories ''and its crew, but D.W. Worth remained optimistic and parted with Wilson, Cage and Cuoco on good terms. After this, Worth began reworking the show yet again, stating that he had come so far with it and felt obliged to see it succeed and flourish given the right treatment. This rework took the rest of 2015, with Worth all the while re-building the concept of ''Western Stories ''from the ground-up and putting a lot of detail into the opening storyline and the central characters and lead actors. In December 2015, Worth stated he had begun working on the pilot script for what would be the 5th version of ''Western Stories ''and that he was 99.9% sure that the show would work given the amount of time he had put into avoiding previous mistakes with the show in recent years.